You’ve heard of “comprehensive” reform? DREAM is non comprehensive reform. It doesn’t even have the basic enforcement provisions—employer sanctions and fancy new ID cards—that were part of the earlier, failed “comprehensive” bargain, which wasn’t a very good bargain (in part because nobody was sure the enforcement schemes wouldn’t be immediately undermined by lawsuits from the same organizations who supported “comprehensive” reform). DREAM is all amnesty, no prevention. Maybe that’s because its backers care about amnesty but not prevention.

Senate Republicans, along with five Democrats, blocked Reid’s nightmarish effort to make undocumented immigrants Illegal immigrants and their advocates happy.

December 17, 2010

I am not a fan of Howard Fineman, but he is spot-on in noting the Tea Party Congress is in session:

The new, more Republican Congress won’t arrive in town until next month, but the Tea Party Era unofficially began on the Hill Thursday night.

Republican leaders in Congress, blindsided by grassroots fury over the tax cut deal they made with President Obama, are now scrambling to show their allegiance to the anti-federal, anti-debt movement.

The GOP brass, led by Senate party leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), did so tonight by eagerly backing the successful efforts of Tea Party favorites to block debate on a $1.1 trillion “omnibus” spending bill that would fund the entire federal government until next October -- but which contained billions of dollars in “earmarks” Republicans, including McConnell, once stoutly defended.

The omnibus bill also contained the spending priorities of the Obama administration and the soon-to-be-ended Democratic-controlled Congress.

Fineman added:

But Reid announced Thursday night that he didn't have the votes he needed to block the maneuver or ensure debate after the reading of the bill. The reason, he said, is that nine Republicans who initially promised to support him had changed their minds.

We fired Pelosi so let’s increase our resources and strength to take back the Senate, elect new governors, and ultimately a principled Republican leader to serve as President of the United States. United, we can make a difference for America and its future.

Like a rooster who takes credit for the sunrise, Steele claims credit for Democrats’ shellacking in the midterm elections.

His engaging manner on TV was one of his attractions as a chairman two years ago. It quickly went sour. Steele doesn’t have the discipline of a party operative. Whether it was lashing out at Rush Limbaugh or calling Afghanistan “a war of Obama’s choosing,” his gaffes distracted from the work at hand. Meanwhile, the $20,000-apiece corporate speeches, the Regnery book, and the accompanying media plugs all gave Steele, fairly or not, the whiff of the political profiteer.

Likewise, his tactical choices seemed at times driven as much by personal exigencies as by party priorities. In September, with midterms kicking into high gear and every piece of data indicating that Republicans could make substantial incursions into key blue districts, where was Steele? Speechifying and fundraising in Guam — no doubt in part because the party committeemen of Guam and other U.S. territories in the Pacific and Caribbean broke heavily for Steele in 2008. A similar calculus could explain why Steele sent $20,000 from his state parties’ budget to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, which has no voting members of Congress, zero electoral votes, and a population roughly the size of Scranton’s.

[...]

Steele’s poor performance as chairman has had one fortunate side effect — it has created a robust field of alternatives. It gives us no pleasure to say this, but none of them would be worse than Steele, and we believe any of them would be better. Someone else deserves a chance at the top of the RNC.

December 13, 2010

At Friday’s press conference, Rep. Barbara Lee reiterated the message that “the overwhelming majority of Congressional Black Caucus members are opposed to the current tax plan.”

CBC Chairwoman Lee said:

We’re extremely concerned that the cuts that could be made should this package pass would disproportionately hurt the poor and low-income communities and further erode the safety net. We don’t want to create a situation today that will exacerbate the conditions for Americans who are already hurting. That would be unfair and would be unwise.

The CBC unveiled an alternative tax cut plan that includes:

A 13-month extension of Emergency Unemployment Insurance Benefits plus additional assistance for the chronically unemployed – those Americans who have been unable to find work for more than 99 weeks.

A payroll tax holiday or equivalent payment, such as a tax rebate check, with guarantees that Social Security will not be deprived of revenue.

Targeted tax relief through a 2-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for hardworking middle- and low-income families and extending the enhanced provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit.

This is going to cost close to a trillion dollars. Now, you know where those cuts are going to come from next year? It’s going to come from initiatives that support the working poor, low-income communities, communities of color. It’s going to go right to the safety net, and so there is no way that the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus could support such a hit on the majority, really, of the American people.

We have done our work on behalf of the American people, and in no way, mind you – in no way – should we give billionaires and millionaires tax breaks, and in no way should we allow the deficit to continue to grow, because we know who’s going to pay for it. It’s going to be our communities.

December 10, 2010

Gil Scott Heron was wrong: The revolution will be televised. House Democrats’ revolt against President Barack Obama’s tax-cut deal is generating wall-to-wall TV coverage.

In a nonbinding resolution, the House Democratic Caucus voted to reject the tax compromise. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the proposed tax deal will not make it to the House floor without changes:

In the Caucus today, House Democrats supported a resolution to reject the Senate Republican tax provisions as currently written. We will continue discussions with the President and our Democratic and Republican colleagues in the days ahead to improve the proposal before it comes to the House floor for a vote.

Democratic priorities remain clear: to provide a tax cut for working families, to create jobs and economic growth, to assist millions of our fellow Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and to do this in a fiscally sound way.

December 07, 2010

In an address from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, President Barack Obama said he would rather compromise than fight. So he announced a “framework for a bipartisan agreement” that includes a two-year extension of tax cuts for the “wealthiest Americans and the wealthiest estates”:

Sympathetic as I am to those who prefer a fight over compromise, as much as the political wisdom may dictate fighting over solving problems, it would be the wrong thing to do. The American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories. They would much rather have the comfort of knowing that when they open their first paycheck on January of 2011, it won’t be smaller than it was before, all because Washington decided they preferred to have a fight and failed to act.

The White House has released a “Fact Sheet on the Framework Agreement on Middle Class Tax Cuts and Unemployment.”

Schulz characterized the tax deal as “a capitulation to the base. Republicans got damn near everything they wanted.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders threatened a filibuster. Sanders told Schultz he will “hold tough, hold firm and not concede to Republicans.” He vowed to “do whatever I can to see that 60 votes are not acquired to pass this piece of legislation.”